This Is Radio Nowhere
by Ms. Lovett
Summary: This is probably gonna be longish, suddenly got the idea fot it when I waslistening to Bruce Springsteen's new album, Magic. T for languge, please review, even if you don't read!


**A/n: I DO NOT own the stand, or Bruce Springsteen, they're just both amazing artists, and i would like to pay them homage. Robin, Edie and Mary are MINE though. **

Robin woke up with a jolt, thinking it was the alarm that had awakened him and looked over to hit the damned thing…but it was only 5:00. An entire hour before he was supposed to wake up and haul his ass off to work at the local paper mill. An hour before Bruce Springsteen's voice should come pumping through his apartment, singing about that tunnel of Love, or the train he was on, filled with saints and sinners. He frowned, wondering what exactly had disturbed his one enjoyed activity now, sleep. There was no one else in the apartment, he had no neighbors in his building, and he didn't have any pets either, so there was no living thing that could have woken him up in his apartment…unless they got in by illegitimate means.

The frown increased, furrowing Robin's brow, as he reached under his pillow for his bowie knife, his safety blanket as it were. He rolled off the edge of the mattress and box spring that he kept on the floor, freeing his legs from the tangled sheets. There was another unusual thing; Robin usually slept like the dead, and was as still as a corpse, but this morning (barely morning, he thought, it was still dark outside yet) the sheet was wound around his ankles like a ball and chain and his blanket was flung clear across the room. The frown turned into an outright scowl as he observed all of this, then stood and, bowie knife held out in front of him like a torch, made his way through his small apartment.

An hour later, he had scoured the apartment from top to bottom, even his laundry chute, and found nothing. He was taking one last look under his couch when suddenly-

"**CAUSE, TRAMPS LIKE US…BABY WE WERE BORN TO RUUUUUN"**

** -**Robin cursed, smacking his head on the underside of the couch, and scowled in the direction of his room. He stalked in, gave his alarm clock a vicious kick, sheathed the knife, and went to go get a shower and ready for work.

When he was in the shower, he suddenly remembered the dream he had had that woke him up so suddenly. He had dreamed of a blonde man in a white robe with a huge sword like a claymore fighting with a man with a rats face and a scythe wearing a huge black robe. The fighters were seemingly equally matched, and both called out to him, the rat promising him riches beyond his wildest dreams, women, hell; men if he wanted them. The young man quietly told him of the paradise that awaited him, a simple happy home of beauty and rest if he were to join his cause. Suddenly the fighters disappeared, and there was a tall man in cowboy boots who…had a face, but on a second look didn't. There was something there that Robin couldn't see, but it gave him the chills nonetheless. Beside this man was an old black woman, face wrinkled like a prune, leaning on an old, knobbed cane. She looked weak and frail, but radiated a sense of inner peace and strength. They both stared Robin dead in the face, and said together "Come to me!"

That was it.

That was what had woken him up.

"WHAT THE HELL?!?" Yelled Robin, smacking his hand against the wall, at the same time scrubbing out the shampoo that had gotten into his eyes and grumbling "I lost a whole goddamned hour of sleep because of a dream? A dream? Christ, I haven't dreamed since…" _since you were convicted of killing Edie. That's when. _

He trailed off, staring into space and remembering Edie, his best friend in the world, could have been more than a friend too, almost was; before her bitter ex-boyfriend killed her. Both Robin and Edie knew that Robin was innocent, and his dreams were filled with her, telling him that he'd be all right, eventually he'd get parole. Edie was always with him while he was in jail, she became his goddess, his guardian angel. He thought that she was the reason he never got involved in any fights in his 5 years there; five years when he changed, when he lost hope in the world and became what he was now: a virtual hermit.

He still thought of Edie sometimes, still remembered her smooth, long-fingered hand's feel against his, and every time decided that he wasn't worth it. Wasn't worth dying for.

Robin's painful reminiscence was cut short by soap running into his eyes. He cursed, scrubbing at his eyes furiously, trying to get the soap out of them. This was definitely not going to be the most fun of days.


End file.
